Insurer Plans To Regroup

The Hartford To Cut Jobs Without Layoffs

ITT Hartford Insurance Group said Thursday that it is revamping some of its Simsbury operations and expects to eliminate an undetermined number of jobs this fall.

Employees in those jobs will be given other work, and "the key thing is there aren't going to be any layoffs," spokesman Joseph Fazzino said.

The reorganization involves about 300 employees in the Employee Benefits Division in Simsbury. That is about 40 percent of the 740 people in the division's home office.

The affected employees are in underwriting and administration, serving the company's group life, health and disability insurance operations.

The Hartford should know by late October or early November whose jobs will be eliminated, Fazzino said. Temporary positions will be created for employees until they can fill permanent jobs at the company, he said.

Certain operations, such as the individual life and annuity area, are growing and offer potential for transfers, he added.

The reorganization is mainly aimed at making The Hartford more competitive and improving service, Fazzino said, but it is expected to cut costs by an undetermined amount.

The Employee Benefits Division will change from an organization based on job functions to a team approach. The reorganization was recommended by outside consultants -- the Robert E. Nolan Co. Inc. in Simsbury.

Instead of a kind of assembly-line approach in which each person completes tasks and passes the work on to the next person, underwriters and people working in rates and administration will work as a team "to handle the business faster and better," Fazzino said.

The restructuring will create four market segments: group life and health, national accounts, disability income, and third-party administration of claims.

The group health field "has been very competitive during the first part of the year, but we've seen some change in that," Fazzino said. "It's starting to turn around."

The Hartford wouldn't break out profit figures on employee benefits operations for 1991. But the company's annual report showed group life and health operations had $91 million of pretax profits in 1990, about 31 percent of the company's $291 million total.

Group life, health and special risk operations had $981 million of premiums last year -- about 14 percent of the company's $7.18 billion total.

The restructuring will not affect the roughly 1,000 field office employees in the Employee Benefits Division.